


Here Endeth the Lesson

by trinityofone



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fallen Castiel, M/M, Pining, now the student has become the master
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 10:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trinityofone/pseuds/trinityofone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-9x03. <i>Dean doesn't want to drag this out.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Here Endeth the Lesson

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to fishandcustard for encouraging this story at every step, from conception to completion. I haven't written SPN fic since 2010. I have to admit, part of me is kind of like, _These assholes? AGAIN?_

Dean doesn’t want to drag this out. Like wrenching a dislocated shoulder back into place: best do it firm, best do it quick. But even though he’d rather grit his teeth and get it over with, he knows he can’t just boot Cas out the door, _wham bam thank you_ — No. He has to at least get him ready. Prepare him. Make him understand that if Dean could, he’d—

The worst of it is Sam. Sam doesn’t understand why Dean is making Cas leave. Cas’ sad, shadowed eyes track Dean as he moves around the bunker, but he’s barely said anything since Dean told him he couldn’t stay. He’s hardly moved. _Sam_ , though: Sam’s all in a snit, stomping around after Dean as Dean fetches a sturdy duffle, as Dean digs through the drawers of his bureau. Cas needs good rugged jeans, Cas needs shirts that aren’t torn or bloodstained, Cas needs a nice warm jacket because Dean can’t bear to picture him wandering around by himself in his sad little hoodie. Dean needs to think about these things, plan for the contingencies Cas doesn’t know to, but all the while Sam’s this lurking presence at his back, huffing warm air onto the back of Dean’s neck and blocking the doorway with a hand on his hip like some sort of indignant teapot. “We just found him, Dean! In an exercise that I think did a pretty good job of demonstrating that he’s not safe by himself out there. Okay, so angels are after him, but last I checked we’re not exactly on any of their Christmas card lists either. Isn’t the bunker—”

“This isn’t a debate,” Dean is reduced to growling, pushing past a solid wall of righteous Sam, using the now-weighty duffle as a wedge. “He’s going.”

Back in the map room, Cas is still sitting. His head is bent, his hands in his lap, and with one thumb, he’s toying with a stray thread on the hem of the hated hoodie. _I just thought I’d sit here quietly_ , Dean thinks, momentum momentarily arrested. Then Kevin emerges from the kitchen. He’s eating some of the Jamie Lee Curtis poop yogurt Dean bought as a sort-of joke and looks…about as healthy as Kate Moss after three days locked in a closet, but at least not like he’s going to pass out sometime in the next four minutes. He’s frowning at Cas. “So…nothing?” he says. “Not a snap? A crackle? A pop?”

“None of those things,” agrees Cas, quietly.

“Well,” says Kevin, accepting this in the resigned manner of someone who has had a crash course in a certain kind of acceptance. His spoon scrapes along the edge of his teeth. “Have you picked out a room yet?”

“I am not staying.” Cas doesn’t look up.

“What? Why not?”

“Because he’s going to Garth’s,” Dean says decisively. From behind him Sam snorts the start of another protest, but Dean ignores him.

Likewise, he tries to ignore Kevin’s wrinkled nose and his, “Oh. Have fun with that.” Cas barely seems to register it anyway.

Dean sets the duffle bag down on the table in front of him. “I got you some stuff.” The words feel like they’re scraping his throat.

Finally Cas looks up. Resigned acceptance: he wears it with the same practiced familiarity as Kevin. “Thank you,” he says.

Dean can’t hear that right now. There’s a lot more ground they need to cover. “Phone,” he says swiftly. “You need a phone.” They have lots of spares. Dean sorts briskly through his options until he finds one that he knows will be reliable and easy to operate. “This is the charger,” he says, handing it over, “and don’t worry about re-upping, you should have unlimited minutes on that thing.”

Cas looks like he’s going to thank him again, so Dean pushes past Kevin into the kitchen. “Let’s get you some food,” he calls over his shoulder. “How’s, uh, everything working so far?” His voice echoes back to him, bouncing off the walls of the fridge as he leans into it. “Is it all…running smoothly, or do you need some of Kevin’s yogurt?”

“Hey!” says Kevin. Dean ignores him and decides to play it safe and grab some of the yogurt. At the very least it’s protein. He tucks a few containers under his arm, scoops up some of Sam’s apples and one of his nasty wheatgrass smoothies that cost six dollars and taste like lawnmower clippings, but who knows, Cas might like that, and hey, he knows Cas likes beer, so he snags a couple beers and some sodas and an almost uneaten block of cheddar. May need to counteract that yogurt. He stands up, wobbling, aware as a can of Coke inches down his side that he’s probably going to need another bag.

“Are you asking me about my bowel movements?” 

Cas is standing in the kitchen doorway, looking tired and scruffy, tilting his head in the same expression of confusion Dean first witnessed in Bobby’s kitchen all those years ago, not long after they first met. Castiel had threatened to toss Dean back into Hell. 

Now he sighs and says, “Do you need help with that?”

“No,” says Dean, heaving everything up onto the counter. “I got it.”

“They’re disgusting,” Cas continues, matter-of-factly, “and annoyingly frequent.” Dean must make a face, because Cas clarifies: “To answer your previous question.”

“Well, don’t eat too much of this yogurt, then,” Dean says. But when he pulls down one of Sam’s environmentally friendly shopping bags from the cabinet, he puts them in anyway.

“I don’t understand the connection,” Cas says. His forehead is creased in thought, and he’s tracking Dean’s movements again, though at least now his expression looks less like an open wound. 

“To be honest,” Dean says, “neither do I.” He adds a box of Ritz crackers to the bag. A jar of peanut butter. Baked beans. Nutella. Some of Sam’s nasty “fruit leather”—no, he can’t do that to Cas. Oreos. Jerky. Maybe a second jar of peanut butter?

“Will there not be food,” Cas asks, “where you’re sending me?”

His eyebrow is slightly raised. Dean can’t keep up with him sometimes: all these versions of Cas, the different creatures Dean and the last five years have forced him to become. Dean thinks this one might be onto him a little.

He shoves the lumpy bag into Cas’ arms. “For emergencies,” he says. “Don’t want to have to hear about you dumpster diving again.”

“I appreciate that,” Cas says, following Dean back into the main room—where, Dean notes with narrowed eyes, Sam and Kevin appear to have been conspiring. Sam is standing with his arms folded over his chest and Kevin, now divested of yogurt, is mimicking Sam’s teapot pose from earlier. “But I don’t think I’ll be able to carry all of this.”

“Huh?” says Dean. They haven’t even gotten to weapons yet.

“On the bus,” says Cas. “I have some experience now with being on the road, and while I agree it’s wise to be well-supplied, traveling light is also something of a necessity.”

“Who said anything about a bus?” Dean forces himself to unclench his fists. Weapons. Cas still needs weapons. He’s got the angel blade—that’s great. But an extra gun or two wouldn’t go amiss. Wasn’t there a sawed-off he liked?

“I told you, I’m taking you to Garth’s. I’m _driving_ you. All you’re gonna have to do is carry a couple of bags from the car to the door.” Bullets. He’ll need bullets. “Even without your mojo I think you can handle that.”

“ _Dean_ —“ says Sam.

“Sam,” Dean interrupts, “why don’t you make yourself useful and find me some 12-gauge shells.”

He sees the shake of Sam’s head as he gives up.

Outside, waiting in the car, he has to watch Kevin and Cas nod at each other, watch as Sam turns Cas’ proffered handshake into an awkward hug. _This is your fault._ Dean catches the thought knifing through his brain and swiftly pushes it away. It’s nothing but another lie. Dean knows whose fault this is.

Cas is silent as he slides into the passenger seat. Dean sits there, his hand on the ignition, overly aware of Sam and Kevin’s shadowed shapes hovering by the door. Still, it’s Cas who cracks first and speaks. “Thank you for dri—“

“Don’t,” says Dean, twisting the key too hard. The engine groans.

It’s not the most enjoyable car ride of Dean’s life. After about an hour, he practically begs Cas to put on some music. Instead of dutifully going for the tapes, like he has in the past, Cas starts fiddling with the radio. Dean watches out of the corner of his eye as Cas rolls past some twangy country, static, a baseball game, static, Spanish talk radio, a perfectly acceptable Lynyrd Skynyrd song, and some more static before finally doubling back onto a blast of bouncy pop, then settling back in his seat with a small half-smile on his face. Dean stares at him in horror.

“Dude,” he says.

“Hmm?”

The last thing Dean wants right now is to give him a hard time, but some things… “ _Ke$ha_?”

“I _like_ this song,” says Cas, decisively, defiantly. “I’ve heard it on the radio before.”

Dean stares at him for a long, musically exuberant minute. “Okay,” he says finally.

He doesn’t speak again until Cas starts twisting in his seat, reaching to rummage through Sam’s environmentally friendly grocery sack. “What are you doing?”

Cas bobs back up with a stick of jerky clenched between his teeth. “I’m hungry.”

“That’s supposed to be for emergencies,” Dean snaps.

“What constitutes an emergency?” Cas asks. Annoyance creeps into his voice. “I’m hungry _now_. It is not a sensation I have decided I enjoy.”

“If you’re hungry,” Dean says, swinging them into the right lane, “tell me you’re hungry, and we’ll stop and get something to eat.”

Cas says nothing for a minute, only nodding when Dean asks, “This okay?” about an approaching truck stop. The truck stop has a Taco Bell drive-through at one end and a sit-down diner at the other; Dean hesitates a moment before parking. They’re walking up the slight slope, Cas in his damn hoodie hunching his shoulders against the wind, when Dean hears him mutter, “I don’t have any money.”

“My treat,” says Dean through clenched teeth.

“Thank you,” Cas says, goddammit, “however…” 

He trails off. “What,” says Dean.

Cas passes his failure to answer off as some sort of respect for the waitress showing them to their booth. “ _What_?” Dean repeats, once they’re seated. “Is it the money? I’ll give you one of the credit cards; I have a couple new ones, they should last for a while. Just don’t go developing an eBay addiction or anything.”

“I’ll try not to,” says Cas. He returns to intently studying the laminated menu.

Dean orders a burger. Cas frowns and scrunches up his nose a lot and finally decides on a bowl of chicken noodle soup and a tuna melt. His face clears as soon as he’s made his choice; he seems pleased with it, pleased to have made it. Dean watches him sit with his hands folded on top of the chipped Formica. Dean calls the waitress back and asks for a couple cups of coffee. He leaves his untouched but he’s right, Cas seems to like the simple act of folding his hands around the hot cup. It was something he used to do when he was playing at being human. Dean remembers.

Dean wants to ask: _What have you been doing. Where have you been. Who did you talk to, was someone, was anyone nice to you. Did you see anything you liked. Did you weird anyone out with your…you. Did you hear me praying. (I guess not. Never again.) Are you okay. Do you think you’ll be okay. Can you forgive—_

_Sex with a Reaper though, how was—_

“Dean,” Cas says quietly, looking up from his coffee. “Talk to me.”

Dean feels his lips part, but he’s saved by the waitress with the plates, the comforting thump of cheap heavy dishes against the tabletop. Mechanically, he reaches for the ketchup, starts slopping it out, but Cas just sits there across from him, not touching his food. “Dean,” he says.

“I wish things didn’t have to be this way.” Dean picks his burger up, puts it down again. Meets Cas’ eyes. “You know that, right?”

“I think so,” Cas says. “Yes.”

“As soon as—“ Dean starts.

“All right.” With a nod, Cas puts him out of his misery. “Okay.”

He eats his tuna melt, licking his fingers, savoring every bite. The soup bowl he tilts, scraping his spoon around the rim, trying to get the last of the broth.

“If you wanna pick that up and drink it, you can,” Dean says. “I won’t tell Emily Post.”

“I don’t see why it would be her business anyway,” Cas says. But he sticks stubbornly to his spoon.

“Pie?” Dean asks, when he’s done.

Cas glances out the window. The sky has darkened to black, the glass now throwing their own reflections back at them. “It’s getting late,” he says.

“There’s _always_ time for pie.”

“In that case,” says Cas, a devious glint in his eye, “I would love a piece of cheesecake.”

Dean scowls. _Judas_ , he wants to say. _This is what happens when I let you out of my sight_. Instead he sits in stony silence and watches Cas lick strawberry syrup off his lips. Cas raises his hands to his mouth like a Japanese schoolgirl when he emits a burp. “I think,” he says, almost scientific about it, “I am full.”

Dean still has a couple bites of pie left. He thinks about lingering over them. He thinks about ordering another cup of coffee, though his first remains untouched. He thinks: this is exactly what he didn’t want. This is in every way the precise opposite of what he wanted. Cas sits across from him, staring out the window toward the car—or into the face of his own reflection. Even after his shower at the bunker, his cheeks are still a scruffy mess. Is this just, like, the _look_ he’s going for now, like how Sam _intentionally_ wears his hair grown out like a girl? Or does he just not know how to shave? Dean should probably show him how to shave.

“C’mon,” he says, sliding out of the booth and heading over to the register to pay. He wants to tell Cas, _Stick close. Watch me_. Is Cas taking note of the fact that Dean always makes sure to sign the correct fake name? He can almost picture Cas scrawling _Why do I have to write my name?_ on the dotted line. He also thinks—he _knows_ —that Cas would be annoyed that Dean is envisioning this.

Cas can take care of himself, Dean tells himself. After all, he got a good distance across the country on his own, without a penny in his pocket—and he only got fatally stabbed the _once_. He’s waiting for Dean to unlock the Impala, shivering in his hoodie, and of course he’ll be totally _fine_ on Garth’s boat. Does he even know how to swim? Maybe! Again, he only drowned the _one_ time!

“I think we should stop for the night,” Dean says, yanking open the car door.

Cas climbs in, drawing his knees up unnecessarily far. “Why?”

“I’m tired.”

“You’re tired.”

“Yup,” says Dean, attempting a yawn, “totally done in.”

“Well,” says Cas, rolling his head to stare out the window, “sleep is important.”

Dean finds a motel. He books a room, trying to indicate with minute movements of his head that Cas should watch him employ the credit card. Cas studies a vending machine and a potted ficus. In the room itself, Dean watches him explore his surroundings in a way he’s never seen Cas do before: he tests the mattress because he’ll have to sleep on it, he fluffs the pillows, locates and plays briefly with the cord for the curtains, the A/C unit, the remote control. 

Dean picks up the remote when Cas abandons it. He flips a few channels. “Hey!” he says, swinging his legs up onto the other bed, working a finger under his laces, “ _Ghostbusters_.”

Cas is bent over his own shoes, disinterested. “Hmm.”

“This is a great movie, Cas,” Dean says. “You should watch this.”

Cas raises his head, but it’s only to shrug off his hoodie. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Another one?”

Cas looks past him. “I like to be clean.”

Dean decides this is a bad time to bring up the shaving thing.

Cas disappears into the bathroom, the door shutting with a click. Dean tries to distract himself with Bill Murray, but he can’t concentrate and after only a minute or so switches it off. He’s sitting in the quiet room, punching out a guilty text to Sam, when he hears Cas let out a shout. He drops the phone and races to the door. “Cas!” he yells, and without waiting for an answer, slams his shoulder into the wood. The lock is obviously either old or cheap; it gives way in an instant. Dean spills into the small yellow-lit bathroom, Cas’ name on his lips. 

A second later, he’s met with the furious glare of its owner. Cas is peering out, dripping, from behind the shower curtain. His hair is spiked and sudsy, his eyes squinty. “Dean,” he says, with deep disdain, “you broke the door.”

“You shouted,” Dean says, annoyed with his own breathlessness.

“The water temperature dropped precipitously.” Cas swipes some soap away from his eyes with the back of his hand. “And I would characterize it as more of a yelp.”

Dean feels he doesn’t have much choice but to be defensive. “I thought you needed help.”

Cas’ lips have drawn thin. “I don’t. I can figure it out. I _have_ been—“

But, “I want to help,” Dean admits. The bathroom floor is damp; water is seeping into his socks. “I want to help you with this, I wanna show you stuff—“

He can see the curve of Cas’ shoulder peeking out from behind the shower curtain, the skin smooth and unblemished now, all fresh glistening muscle, untouched. Practically, anyway. He can hear the faint patter of the water beating on Cas’ back. Not very good water pressure, he thinks, nothing like they have at the bunker…

“I want to be the one—“

“I know,” Cas says. “I wanted you to. Obviously it hasn’t worked out—“

“Goddammit,” Dean says, walking across the tile floor in his wet socks. “It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair.”

He yanks the shower curtain back. Cas stares at him, eyes blue and wide, as Dean clambers fully clothed into the tub. “It ought to be me. I should—“

He kisses Cas or Cas kisses him. It’s not important. The important thing is Cas’ fingers uncurl from the plastic curtain and curve around the back of Dean’s neck. Dean cradles Cas’ rough, scruffy cheeks, and he kisses his soft mouth, and he feels the warmth of Cas’ body against his. The cold water is seeping into his clothes, slicking his shirt to his back and turning his jeans to lead around his legs, but he feels warm and light. They slide against the tile. “Dean,” Cas says, “this is, oh—“

“I want—“

“—Only make it worse.”

Dean pulls back. Cas’ mouth is impossibly pink and Dean can still taste him. Dean’s still touching his face. They stare at each other: those familiar blue eyes search his face and Cas looks torn to pieces by whatever’s he finding. He looks like Dean feels.

“You want me to stop,” Dean says, flat.

Cas jerks his head in a movement that’s not quite a nod. “No,” he says.

He lets Dean wash the shampoo out of his hair. They shiver together under the cold water. As soon as Cas is clean enough, they stumble back out of the bathroom. Dean’s soaked socks slide on the slick linoleum floor; Cas has to catch him, keep him upright. In his wet clothes he’s shaking from the cold. Cas helps him fight his way out of his sticking shirt, his clinging jeans. Naked, they burrow under the covers. Dean runs a hand over Cas’ flank. His chest clenches when he realizes he can slot his fingers into the gaps between Cas’ ribs. He tucks his head into the hollow of Cas’ throat, feels the flutter of his pulse point, sucks hungrily at his skin. When he glances up, Cas is watching him, a glint of blue eyes in the grey dark of their cocoon. “Show me,” he whispers.

Dean does.

* * *

Cas’ face is mostly peaceful in sleep. Occasionally his nose scrunches up, twitchy like a rabbit, before his breath hitches and his body shifts. Then he settles down again, solid and warm at Dean’s side. Skinnier than he ought to be but here. The Enochian tattooed just above his left hip has left the skin slightly puffy. Dean wants to touch but doesn’t let himself. The sigils themselves look like lace. 

He only sleeps for a few hours—not as long as he should, Dean thinks. Dean is nearly dozing himself when he feels Cas’ back stiffen against his chest. Cas comes awake with a gasp, starts and then settles into Dean’s loose, tentative embrace. His nose rubs against the edge of Dean’s outstretched hand.

“Dean,” he says.

Dean presses his lips to Cas’ bare shoulder, once, swift, and then makes himself stop. “What were you dreaming about?”

“I don’t remember.” Cas rolls over so they’re face to face; his bangs tickle Dean’s nose. “Dreams are very strange.”

“You get used to them,” Dean says, remembering Sammy waking in the night, the reach of his small skinny arms, ruffling his hair.

Cas narrows his eyes. “Lie,” he says, non-accusatory—noting it, perhaps, for the record.

Dean shrugs a little. His arm is starting to feel pinched. His voice comes out sounding thick. “You’re catching on quick.”

Cas says, “I’ve had a good teacher.”

Dean knows he moves. He feels himself pull his arms in tight, squeeze his eyes shut. He releases a long, shaky breath, and then he’s done. He unclenches his hands from where they’ve come together over his chest.

“Dean.” Cas’ fingers brush his, briefly. “I will charge my phone.”

“Good,” Dean says, sitting up. “’S important to remember that.”

“If you think of anything else you need to tell me,” Cas says carefully, “you can always call.”

Dean nods. He starts to pull on his shorts, then stops with them hauled halfway up his calves. His clothes are all still damp and icy cold, lying crumpled on the floor.

Cas shuffles through his duffle bag. “Here,” he says. “I have extra.”

They step outside into soft, pinkish dawn light. Dean could really go for pancakes, for eggs and bacon, but he takes them through a McDonald’s drive-through, tries not to watch Cas licking melted cheese off his Egg McMuffin wrapper with intent, focused probes of his pretty pink tongue. He shoves _Zeppelin II_ into the deck without a discussion.

Far too quickly, Garth’s boat looms up out of the fog, bobbing on the water like a ghost ship. This is where he’s leaving Cas. When they step out of the Impala, the air feels damp. He watches Cas fumble with the zip on his hoodie. Dean remembers standing outside a police station in Maine, helping Cas tie his tie, swift and unselfconscious. _When humans want something really, really bad_ , he’d advised, smoothing the line of Cas’ collar, brisk, businesslike strokes, _we lie_.

Yeah. How’s that working out for him.

Cas is messing around in the back, collecting his bags. He shoulders all three, carries them down the dock all by himself, no mojo required. Dean stands there like an inept valet, not quite reaching out. He stares at the back of Cas’ head, the mussed tangle of his hair. He knows now just how soft it is.

He’s not good at this. He ought to have had enough practice by now, with goodbyes, and this, this isn’t even forever, it may not even be for long… Cas halts at the end of the dock, half turning. Dean wets his lips.

* * *

All the way home, he thinks about what he would have said if Garth hadn’t picked that morning of all mornings to actually be at home. As it was, he’d expended his allotment on “Cas, this is Garth. Garth, Cas” and “Garth, try not to scare him” and “Cas, I’ll…see you soon” with his uplifted hand skating off the edge of Cas’ shoulder.

Cas had said even less. Dean had felt his eyes, tracking Dean as he moved, but when he’d reached the Impala and against his better judgment, turned back, Cas was already gone.

Dean thumps his hand against the steering wheel to stop it from twitching. He’s got his music turned up extra loud and he’s got three missed calls from Sam but he can’t talk right now, can’t hear anything over the blare of the music, can barely even hear himself think. The phone buzzes again in his pocket, and Dean ignores it while he helps John Bonham with his drum solo in “Moby Dick,” then through the entirety of “Bring It on Home.” The tape whirrs as it cycles back to the start, but Dean knows all too well how this goes and punches it off before “Whole Lotta Love” can begin. With a sigh, he digs his phone out of his pocket.

_Dean, the novelty of a verbose companion such as Garth is swiftly wearing off. I am teaching myself to text._

Dean doesn’t realize how long he’s been staring down at the screen until he catches himself drifting over the yellow lines. He drops the phone into his lap and jerks on the wheel.

The phone buzzes again, warm on his thigh.

_I have picked my room. The selection was limited, but I am grateful for the choice._

Dean spends a few moments tapping his thumb against the edge of the screen, trying to formulate a response.

Before he can, another buzz.

_The shower is worrisome._

Followed swiftly by—

_This phone can take pictures._

—accompanied by an illustration of said fact. Cas, in his photo, is standing next to Garth’s dank, drippy nightmare of a shower, brow creased in (Dean hopes) exaggerated concern. Dean catches himself huffing out a laugh.

_Garth says this is called a selfie._

Dean braces his left arm on the wheel, typing out his response, character by careful character, with his right thumb.

_Just the vital info u need to b learning_

A second after it’s sent, Dean realizes he still has something to say.

_Dont worry we’ll keep the good one ready and waiting for u_

And finally—

_I’ll call you from home._


End file.
